


what pictures do you see;

by jjakbbam



Category: MXM (Band), Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: 2dong and sewoon are minor characters, M/M, Multiple Lives AU, idek where this went tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 22:04:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15895017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjakbbam/pseuds/jjakbbam
Summary: In every life Youngmin spends with Donghyun, he hopes the next one would, finally, be better.





	what pictures do you see;

**Author's Note:**

> this was sitting in my drafts for like three months before i finally got the courage to post it, so uhm, yeah.  
> unbeta-ed.

_ Sewoon said that seven is the norm, but look what happened, then, _ Youngmin thinks dully as he shrugs on one of the coats he’s being made to wear.  _ If seven really was the norm, I wouldn’t be in this eighth one already. _

 

When Kim Donghyun’s eyes had landed on him and his lips pull back into that exact smile which earned him the official nickname of ‘ _ sunshine boy’ _ from their third life as he bows, Youngmin thought, Youngmin  _ expected  _ the other to recognize him, but that expectation went down the drain as Donghyun introduced himself formally and asked for his name. Started calling him  _ Youngmin-ssi  _ as he asked Youngmin to head over to the white background, and Youngmin can detect no trace of the familiar warmth he’s grown used seeing after so many lives.

 

In this eighth life, Im Youngmin is a freelance model not so popular, but popular enough to land him enough gigs to support himself and himself alone. At twenty-four, he was already starting to wonder when and how he would meet his so-called  _ sunshine boy _ . I mean, they met earlier in lives before, so what took so long this time around?

 

Unless he’s finally older than twenty-one?

 

Kim Donghyun, a photography intern, is holding his camera, snapping away while Youngmin walks around, turns around, sits down, and does a lot of casual poses. Youngmin is asked to look at the camera, and he does, but when he’s asked to look away, he just looks past the camera lens and looks directly at Kim Donghyun. The photographer grins and gives him a thumbs up.

 

“You’re doing great! Keep going!”

 

Youngmin keeps posing until Kim Donghyun asks him to stop, and he’s whisked away to get changed into another outfit. By the time he’s changed outfits three times and posed using different props, the photoshoot is over, and Youngmin is bowing to all the staff with a friendly smile and thanking them all for their hard work.

 

Youngmin smiles just a bit wider at Donghyun, his heart fluttering in his ribcage despite the bitter feeling gnawing at him ever since Donghyun didn't seem to recognize Youngmin hasn’t left his chest just yet. He doubts it’ll leave anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

In the first life, Youngmin and Donghyun were both students trying to get through college with tons of student loans and bills to pay, while trying to pass all their required subjects all at the same time. Youngmin had come up to the city of Seoul from the port city Busan with dreams of becoming a filmmaker, and Donghyun came up to the big city to become a literatist.

 

By the time they met, Youngmin was in senior year, and Donghyun was a sophomore.

 

Needless to say, they became fast, close friends as roommates with common similar interests in the arts and with the help of Donghyun’s bright and cheerful personality. Donghyun carried around a small notebook with a pen hung onto it everyday. Meanwhile, Youngmin took videos of the little things found in daily life, editing the videos until late night and saving it onto a hard drive that he’d labelled as  _ memories _ . Half the time, the videos were of Donghyun, and the other half, they were of Sewoon, a close friend he’d made in his photography class in freshman year.

 

Donghyun was closer to Youngmin than possibly anyone else and despite the age gap, Youngmin didn’t feel the three years difference at all. Donghyun was a warm, genuinely kind person who was there for him most of the time. And Donghyun talked a lot, talked much more than Youngmin can ever talk and was more open to everything and anything more than Youngmin will ever be. 

 

Donghyun had also been much less of a realist than Youngmin is. Donghyun had big dreams, talked of them with such a shining sparkle and burning passion in his eyes that Youngmin felt like drowning in the younger’s passion every time he talked about the many things he wanted to do and many things he wanted to write about. Youngmin had been jealous because of that; he’d never had so many dreams and goals before. Donghyun had also talked a lot about his ideas, and strangely enough, Youngmin had never read anything Donghyun had written until after Donghyun went six feet under. He had found it funny, and ironic, how such a big dreamer could leave so quickly. 

 

He’d never imagined Donghyun, out of all people, to have suicidal tendencies, with his bright smiles and many life goals.

 

Later on, he’d learned from Donghyun’s twin brother, Taehyun, that Donghyun had gone through a lot of shit back in middle and high school for his many dreams, for his wanting to be a literatist, and for his sexuality. Youngmin had found it even funnier, the fact that he realized he had unknowingly to himself fallen into the deep pit of a certain Kim Donghyun when the other had already gone.

 

Maybe that’s what pushed him to make a lot of short films in the younger’s memory. If Donghyun couldn’t live out all his goals by himself, the least Youngmin could do for a person he loves and cherishes is fulfill those goals for the other, right? At that point, he thought he could really call Donghyun his soulmate, that one other person who was Youngmin’s other half. He just couldn’t explain how he felt it, but he did.

 

In the second life, they stood on opposite corners of one side of a warzone, with Donghyun carrying a rifle gun and grenades in his pockets, and with Youngmin waiting,  _ always waiting _ , underneath the first aid tent.

 

Donghyun hadn’t even known Youngmin’s name in the second life. He just referred to him as  _ ‘the tall guy at first aid who looks like an alpaca’  _ whenever he talked to Gwanghyun and Sewoon, and Youngmin overheard the conversations while he was tending to another soldier’s injury. The nickname was cute, and Youngmin had always wanted to introduce himself but he never got the chance to. They’d never talked to each other in that life.

 

Youngmin only saw Donghyun in fleeting moments whenever the sun rose and the soldiers woke up to get ready for a new battle, and when Donghyun would be getting his rifle from the weaponry. They’d exchange gazes a few times, whenever Donghyun had his combat helmet on, and Youngmin felt like his heart was about to burst multiple times. Youngmin would spend the whole day hoping and praying that Donghyun wouldn’t fall in battle, while tending to those who came in wounded.

 

He doesn’t remember much details from that life, but he does remember that Donghyun was just twenty-one then, the same age he died in the first one. Twenty-one years is much too early for a person to die, but they were in the middle of a civil war. Death, naturally, is and was inevitable. Youngmin shouldn’t have expected Donghyun to survive a war bombing; he wouldn’t have been able to save Donghyun, either.

 

After all, Youngmin can’t save a person he doesn’t really know.

 

He thought back, thinking that maybe if he knew about Donghyun’s depression earlier, maybe he could have saved him, then. Maybe Donghyun wouldn’t have died at such an early age. Maybe he could somehow stop Donghyun from dying at twenty-one.

 

 

 

 

“How old are you?” Youngmin asks, walking up to the photographer as casually as he can with a huge gym bag while the other is packing up his things last when all the others staffs have already packed up and left.

 

Donghyun glances up while he’s gently wiping at the lens of his camera and laughs, the sound similar to the tinkling bells of a convenience store door opening. “Well, that’s a sudden question. You’re not a pervert, are you?”

 

Youngmin smiles sheepishly, hand immediately rubbing the back of his neck, “You look young, that’s all.”

 

Donghyun laughs again, wiping at the corners of the lens,“Twenty-one. I turn twenty-two in a few months. And you, Youngmin-ssi?” 

 

Right. Youngmin briefly remembers Donghyun being born in September, and it’s currently the middle of May. Four months before Donghyun turns twenty-two; four months before Donghyun possibly dies again.

 

“Twenty-four.” Youngmin says. Pauses, takes a moment to think about what he’ll say next before he offers, “Do you want to go have dinner with me?”

 

Donghyun puts his camera down inside its bag and carefully places the towel on top of it, zipping the bag closed before finally saying, “I don’t have much money on me. I was just going to buy something at a convenience store then go home.”

 

“Then let’s go get something from a convenience store.” Youngmin nods, and Donghyun hums, drumming his fingers lightly on top of the bag. 

 

If he’s finding Youngmin weird or creepy, he’s not letting anything on, but Youngmin personally feels like he should back off, but at the same time he feels he shouldn’t. It’s a strange feeling.

 

Donghyun then slings the strap of his camera bag over his shoulder.

 

“Let’s go, then. I passed by a store on the corner on my way here.”

 

They really do end up in a convenience store, each with a cup of instant noodles in front of them. Youngmin suddenly recalls the first time he and Donghyun sat inside a convenience store together in their previous lives. It was in their first life, and it was a corner store near the college dorms. Donghyun had liked doing his papers there, with a bottle of coffee and a pack of gummy candy beside his pens. He had asked Youngmin to accompany him, and so Youngmin came, bringing his laptop and his camera connector to be able to get some work time.

 

Donghyun was always fiddling with something in front of Youngmin, and this time isn’t really any different. Donghyun, the photographer, takes out his camera and leans over the small table to show Youngmin the many shots he took, smiling and pointing at the shots he thinks looks especially good. He even asks for Youngmin’s contact details so he can send the photos to Youngmin. 

 

“If you want them, of course,” Donghyun quickly adds, and Youngmin chuckles, asking for Donghyun’s phone so he can type out his number and email as a memo.

 

Youngmin hands back the phone, smiling, “Can I have your contact details, too?”

 

Donghyun coughs all of a sudden, before nodding and reaching for the phone Youngmin is holding out to him, tapping for a few seconds then returning it. Youngmin smiles at him once again and saves Donghyun’s contact number as ‘ _ sunshine boy _ ’. “Thanks!”

 

Donghyun then motions at Youngmin’s noodle cup while picking up his own chopsticks. “I think our noodles are soggy now. We should eat.”

 

 

 

 

In the third life, Youngmin felt like they were sucked into one of Donghyun’s many story ideas. 

 

They met in jail, of all places.

 

Fucking _ jail. _

 

Policeman Youngmin didn’t have much to do in that life. He only filed papers and sat in his cubicle all day, and Donghyun was that neighborhood delinquent any church parent would want to disown. Stole motorcycles, drove drunk, crashed into other cars, the like of things that Youngmin never had enough courage to do when he was in college through all his lives.

 

Youngmin, having nothing to do in the station while the higher up policemen went out to do things they deemed him too junior to do, had long chats with Delinquent Donghyun whenever he had no more papers to file. No one came in the station anyway. It was a peaceful enough neighborhood.

 

Donghyun was a church choir boy, sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet up with friends from the next neighborhood and coming back home at five in the morning, smelling like what his parents categorized as  _ ‘hell’  _ whenever they caught the scent when they woke up. That kind of person. Donghyun had complained a lot about his friends who ran away from the scene when Donghyun crashed into that other car. Donghyun had complained too much he actually started sounding whiney and looking pouty. It was adorably amusing.

 

As a policeman, Youngmin should have been disapproving that Donghyun's friends ran away, but that was the first time he had ever laughed so hard while being on desk duty. No one else was in jail that time, so it was just the three of them with Donghyun, Youngmin, and another guy who stayed in the head office all day and slept. ( _ “Oh, that officer is Sewoon.” _ ) No big deal. No one really seemed to be bothered by the fact that the one policeman left in the station (who also happens to be awake) was talking to the jailed delinquent.

 

Youngmin remembers being confused how such a genuinely nice person like Donghyun would go drunk driving and doing what he did. Donghyun had said it was to break free of the many rules his parents had set on him. Curfews, introducing all his friends, weekly mass, the things that hindered a nineteen year old’s social life. While other kids his age were out partying and being passed out in a friend’s house on a Sunday morning after drinking too much the night before, Donghyun would be in church, in a stuffy button up shirt and stiff black pants in the middle of summer.

 

Donghyun confesses it all to Youngmin on a day at the start of autumn in the way he would confess his sins to a priest, but without the pretend regret. Youngmin had even shared some parts of his life to Donghyun that time, like the reasons why he became a policeman and why he always preferred to do the desk jobs.

 

Donghyun had smiled a lot that day, and that’s why Youngmin started calling him ‘ _ sunshine boy _ ’. Donghyun was always smiling. He smiled when Youngmin came in and clocked in the morning; he smiled when Youngmin would talk to him. He would crack jokes, but he always did it to just Youngmin, never to the other officers. Youngmin should have found that part of Donghyun’s behavior strange, but he didn't.

 

It was late in the evening one day when Donghyun brought up a topic that shocked Youngmin. He talked about having dreams, of dying, of seeing something like a shadow with the same glimmer in his eyes and voice as Youngmin, of living in the time of a civil war, of writing thousands of words in a bright orange notebook.

 

“Well,” Youngmin had simply cleared his throat, “That’s certainly something.”

 

“I also thought that if I went out in the dark, maybe I could see that guy in real life. You know, maybe, have my dreams become a reality. He was like a shadow, maybe I could meet shadows.” Donghyun had said. Then quickly added, “Wow, I sound like a fucking lunatic. I sound high.”

 

Youngmin had just snorted and said nothing, biting his lip to prevent himself from telling Donghyun that  _ he  _ was the shadow, in flesh and blood.

 

“And this is all strange,” Donghyun had motioned to his surroundings after a pause. Motioned to Youngmin. “ _ You’re _ strange. I feel comfortable around you even though you were the one who technically got me landed in here. It’s like I know you more than this, it’s like you’re my best friend.”

 

Youngmin had swallowed the growing lump in his throat. “That’s weird, because I have never seen you in this life before you stepped in this station.”

 

After that, Donghyun never brought up the topic again. Started talking less to Youngmin, started cracking less jokes. They still talked, yes, but it wasn’t really the same.

 

Youngmin had supposedly wanted to talk to Donghyun about those supposed dreams around a week after he brought them up, but there was a sudden emergency in the station that required even Youngmin to get out on the streets.

 

That was the first life where Im Youngmin died first, stabbed in the middle of the back with the knife of a murderer let loose. It was the also the first life where Youngmin didn’t seem to have fallen into an endless pit of Kim Donghyun, as much as he cared about the other.

 

 

 

 

“Sewoon, why the fuck are you in my house at eleven o’clock?” Youngmin sighs when he sees a twenty year old boy (in this life) sitting with his legs stretched out on Youngmin’s sofa bed in the middle of his tiny apartment.

 

Sewoon glances up from his phone and swings his legs over the edge, grinning widely and speaking in a singsong voice while showing Youngmin cheesy jazz hands, “My morning class tomorrow is cancelled! I’m free!”

 

Youngmin sighs, dropping his gym bag on the space beside Sewoon and lies down with his head on the younger’s lap. “Get a job or something, be my fucking modelling manager, I don’t know..”

 

“I’m already busy enough with schoolwork, thank you very much. I can be your manager if I wanted to, but I need to act like a proper twenty year old.” Sewoon looks down at Youngmin’s face and sticks his tongue out, “Wait, I know this expression. It’s your ‘ _ he doesn’t remember anything _ ’ expression again.”

 

“I hate you and your self who knows everything about my past lives.”

 

“You’re just miserable your sunshine can’t remember a single thing about his past lives,” Sewoon chuckles, now carding his fingers through Youngmin’s hair and sweeping his fringe off of his forehead, “Don’t worry, I feel like he’ll remember this time!”

 

“You said that three lives ago.” Youngmin deadpans.

  
“We’re getting closer to him remembering everything, I promise!” Sewoon insists, then laughs loudly, “Now spill, what happened today? He was the photographer at your gig and then?”

 

Jung Sewoon, an all knowing being and supposedly Youngmin’s soul guardian who’s been with Youngmin since the first life and finally introduced himself as an all knowing being by the start of the fourth life, promising him that Donghyun will remember him by the end of said life. Nothing happened. It continued on for the next few lives until they reached where they are right now. Youngmin learned halfway through the sixth life that Sewoon is just a being who can't interfere because it'll mess up fate, and he has never interfered once.

 

When he first explained that to Youngmin, he mentioned the third life and explained that he’s always been asleep because he’s tired and he can’t go out of the office when Youngmin and Donghyun are talking. If he goes out of the office, he’d mess up a course of events. On the other hand, Sewoon just barged in Youngmin's fourth life at eight years old, became his neighbor and swore that they'd be best friends forever, proudly promising that he would be Youngmin’s Doctor Strange.

 

Four lives later, Donghyun’s still dying at twenty-one, and Youngmin shortly after.

 

“You know, you should try bothering Donghyun sometime instead of me.” Youngmin says dully, curling up in Sewoon’s lap and closing his eyes. “I’m not the one who doesn’t remember.”

 

“He doesn’t remember enough for me to start talking to him! He has to dream a little bit more.”

 

Youngmin snorts. “How much more? I feel like we’re going in circles.”

 

Sewoon hums, “Few months worth of dreams more? Besides, he’s already being comfortable with you right from the start, don’t you notice? Fourth life, you scared his six year old self away with your nine year old breakdancing. Fifth life, you two met at your mom’s second wedding. Sixth life, you met in the Renaissance, and he was an  _ amazing  _ painter. Seventh life-”

 

“In the seventh life, he was blind and got hit by a drunk driver’s car. Tough luck.”

 

“But he painted the you from your fifth life when he was a painter! It was a very accurate painting!” Sewoon points out. “See? He’s improving!”

 

Jung Sewoon, a too optimistic all knowing being who’s insisting that Donghyun will remember everything. Youngmin’s always believed Sewoon just to be let down in the end.

 

Like a fool, he believes Sewoon once again.

 

 

 

 

Sewoon calls it chasing a person’s own soulmate, but never touching. Youngmin doesn’t know how he started calling it that way. (He doesn’t understand why Sewoon calls it that.)

 

A person meets his soulmate in their first life, and will continue to meet their soulmate over the course of multiple lifetimes but dying at the same age he died in the first life. It’s why Donghyun keeps dying at twenty-one years old, never turning twenty-two. As a person lives and dies through more lifetimes, his memories of past lifetimes start to come back to him, while the other person of the soul pairing has full memories of all lives.

 

They will only live full lives when the person who doesn’t remember, finally remembers. Sometimes, it takes people five lives to start living full lives. Most of the time, it takes seven, because seven is a holy number. Some people, unfortunately, have to continue living and dying for more than ten lifetimes. 

 

Guardians exist with the pure intention and goal to watch over and encourage a person through waiting for his soulmate to remember, as it can take very long times. Guardians are beings who know everything about a person's completed lifetimes, except for how it will end. They have no clue whether or not the person they're watching over will finally start living full lifetimes. 

 

The sole reason why a person exists in these lifetimes is to find their soulmate and to live one full life together. After soulmates live one full life together, they die. When that happens, the guardian, too, will disappear, and the soulmate will have the same choice the guardian did: the choice to die after living a full lifetime with their soulmate or the choice to become guardians in exchange for another set of multiple lives instead.

 

Youngmin honestly wishes he won’t reach more than ten lifetimes. It’s tiring to keep chasing Donghyun through so much, even if Sewoon is there as his guardian, since they’re really going to end up meeting and living one whole lifetime together eventually.

 

Sewoon, at fourteen, explained the concept to him in their fourth life when Youngmin was sixteen, and Youngmin still had that strange habit of sitting on his windowsill on the second floor of his house. Sewoon was sitting inside Youngmin’s bedroom, then, with a guitar on his lap and strumming absentmindedly while waiting for Donghyun to come over.

 

At the time, Youngmin didn’t understand the concept much yet, but once Kim Donghyun, thirteen, had knocked on the door and Youngmin’s mom let him in the house. Donghyun had run up to Youngmin’s room and bluntly said to Sewoon, skidding on the carpet on his knees the moment he entered the room.

 

“Pudding!”

 

Youngmin had promptly fallen off the windowsill in shock because Pudding was the name of Sewoon’s guitar back in their first life and in all succeeding lives.

 

Youngmin never sat on the windowsill in that life and lives after that ever again. He never got over the horror of explaining to his mother how he fell from his window, and over the pain of sustaining injuries around his hips. After that, Youngmin started to expect that Donghyun would remember more things as time passed by like Sewoon said he would, but by the end of the lifetime, the only thing Donghyun ended up remembering was Pudding, and Pudding alone.

 

It became a little better for Donghyun’s memory by the fifth. They both met at Youngmin’s mother’s second wedding, and Donghyun’s family was one of the guest families because their mothers were old friends, but the sons had never met each other before. While Youngmin’s brothers were entertaining the guests, Youngmin was sitting alone outside of the wedding hall because no, he didn’t want this wedding to even happen. He wanted his  _ dad _ , not whatever guy his mom just started dating because they divorced.

 

Youngmin was nineteen, then, and he did not expect to meet seventeen year old Donghyun at his mother’s wedding. Out of all places to meet Kim Donghyun, it had to be the one place, at the one event he absolutely hated the most.

 

Youngmin remembers he was sitting on a bench and kicking at the rocks on the ground when Donghyun had suddenly come up to him, sat down and said, “You don’t look happy.” Youngmin had looked up with a surprised look, and Donghyun chuckled, “You’re Youngmin, right? I’m Donghyun, but I’m not sure if you remember me.”

 

Youngmin did, in fact, remember, and he tells Donghyun that. Donghyun just nods, a small smile forming on his face and shifting in his seat so that he and Youngmin are side by side.

 

“So, you don’t seem to be liking the fact that your mother is getting married.” Donghyun started conversationally, and Youngmin had snorted.

 

“Not really.”

 

Donghyun had laughed, “You don’t like the guy?”

 

Youngmin shrugged, “Never really got to know him, to be honest.”

 

“So, you’re trying to be that angsty teen who doesn’t even bother to get to know the stepdad, and just rebels, is that it?”

 

“When you put it that way, I sound stupid.”

 

Donghyun let out a softer, awkward laugh. “Sorry about that. Something just tells me being angsty isn’t really your thing.”

 

“And how would you know what  _ is  _ my thing?”

 

“I don’t know, I just feel like you’re not acting as naturally as you probably would normally.”

 

Youngmin didn’t say anything in reply to that for a while. Donghyun had just crossed his legs over the other and folded his hands in his lap silently. Youngmin glanced over at the other boy, taking in the way he looked in that life. “You look good,” he had commented, and Donghyun had laughed loudly, echoing the same statement to Youngmin.

 

(Donghyun had looked amazingly good in that life, and in every life, to Youngmin.)

 

That was the second life Youngmin had died first, with Youngmin attempting a few times to kill himself before eventually getting hit by a truck when he went out for a midnight drive alone with his stepdad’s car.

 

 

 

 

**_Here are a few of your photos! Sorry it took a while, I was editing the lighting and tweaking with it a bit. They’re really pretty, and I hope you like them as much as I like them. I attached both the edited photos and the original ones._ **

 

**_I hope we can work together again in the future!_ **

 

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Youngmin types back a quick email when he gets the photos two days after the shoots, sending back a thank you email to Donghyun before saving all the photographs one by one. They’re nice shots, and he sends Donghyun a reaction video through KakaoTalk, filming his laptop and showing him zooming in on the photos and exclaiming about how nice they came out.

 

Donghyun replies hours later with laughing emojis, apologizing for the late reply and sending a video of him as well. He’s holding a cup of coffee and grinning brightly, saying, “I’m really glad you liked them. The photoshoot with you was actually my first project.” He looks like he’s alone, but when he sends a message, he informs Youngmin that he’s currently editing and picking through the photos with his senior at his internship. Youngmin wishes him a good luck before setting down his phone, and focusing on scrolling through freelance job searching sites.

 

It’s half past seven in the evening, and Donghyun is at work. He must be a hard worker in this life, as well, to be working overtime.

 

The next moment his Youngmin’s phone dings and it’s a message from Donghyun, it’s well past ten o’clock, and Donghyun tells him he’s just washed up and is getting ready to go to bed already.

 

Youngmin has just finished applying for a new freelance job when he checks his phone, and it’s a half hour after Donghyun has sent the message, and Donghyun is most likely asleep by then. Youngmin silently plugs his phone in the charger and crawls underneath the thick blankets on his sofa bed, tugging them over his head and closing his eyes.

 

The next time he gets to meet Donghyun in person after only messaging each other is two long months later. They meet in a cafe during one of Donghyun’s breaks, and Donghyun talks about a road trip he’s planning to go on with some of his friends for his birthday. Youngmin suddenly gets a sinking feeling remembering that Donghyun’s twenty-second birthday is coming soon, and realizes that he’ll have to live through another life once again.

 

“Do you want to come with us?” Donghyun suddenly blurts out, and Youngmin chokes over the iced coffee he’s drinking, reaching over to wipe his mouth with a tissue.

 

“I’m sorry, what?”

 

“Do you want to come on a road trip with us?”

 

Youngmin blinks in surprise, running his tongue over his lower lip before shrugging, then abruptly nodding. “Sure, why not?”

 

Donghyun grins, it’s a wide, pretty smile. “Great, I’ll just text you the details when we finalize everything. I know you’ll get along great with my friends. You get along with me, anyway.”

 

 

 

 

Youngmin thinks that if he’s going to die in a few weeks, he might as well be trying out something new for a change. He stops looking for modeling jobs and starts looking for short term cheap musical instrument classes. In the period of time he’s spending not looking for modelling jobs and not looking for musical classes, he spends the afternoons with Sewoon.

 

“You have  _ got  _ to be fucking joking.” Sewoon states from behind his laptop screen while furiously typing a paper due the next day when Youngmin tells him about Donghyun. “The guy died in the previous life by getting hit by a car, and now you’re going on a  _ road trip _ with him and his friends?”

 

Youngmin sips at his coffee, “Well, it’s on his birthday. If he dies in the car, I die, too. We all die. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

 

“If you die, you’ll be having a ninth life.”

 

“True.”

 

“And that’s okay with you?”

 

Youngmin sets his cup down and stretches out his legs, comfortably leaning back against the plush seat of Sewoon’s university’s cafe. He doesn’t say anything. Sewoon peeks up at him again, looking like a cartoon fish with just his eyes seen over his laptop.

 

“You’re insane.” Sewoon concludes.

 

Maybe Youngmin agrees.

 

 

 

 

When they meet one day before Donghyun's twenty second birthday, Donghyun’s two friends are nice enough to not leave Youngmin out of their conversations. Donghan and Taedong have been Donghyun’s friends since college freshman year, and they’re all very friendly people. Donghan may or may not be too clingy and Taedong a bit too smiley, but they’re nice people all the same.

 

Donghyun asked Youngmin to meet them at the city’s main train station at one in the afternoon and Donghyun had pulled up to the sidewalk Youngmin is standing at with his backpack on his shoulders, his head poked out of the backseat of a sleek silver car at exactly a minute before one. A blond guy had waved at him from the passenger seat, grinning widely and asking in a tone as loud as his smile was wide, “Hello! Are you Donghyun’s boyfriend?”

 

Donghyun had slapped the guy’s shoulder and opened the car door to the backseat for Youngmin to crawl in.

 

“Come on, we have a long way to go and I heard traffic’s terrible today! Toss in your stuff!”

 

Youngmin dropped his backpack on the seat first before climbing in, and when he had sat down and closed the car door, Donghyun was staring at his bag with wide eyes. Youngmin raised his eyebrows, “What’s wrong?”

 

“Your backpack is so  _ tiny _ !”

 

Yeah. Sewoon said the same thing. Youngmin had argued that if he was going to die, he might as well lessen the load he was carrying on his back and bring less stuff. Sewoon had just clucked his tongue and told Youngmin to  _ at least _ bring a change of underwear.

 

(Youngmin did pack underwear and a shirt change, for Sewoon’s information.)

 

Donghan is the one who had asked Youngmin if he was Donghyun’s boyfriend, and Taedong is the one driving. Donghan says that he and Taedong are in fine arts, and that’s where Donghyun was, too, for two terms before he dropped out and switched to photography. Taedong then adds that the three of them are roommates, and that’s why Donghan is shameless around them and anyone and everyone related to them.

 

Youngmin thinks they’re pretty nice kids, but sort of wild, especially Donghan. Taedong drives pretty calmly even when there’s a loud Donghan singing pop songs at the top of his lungs, and Taedong isn’t even fazed when Donghan tries to kiss him on the cheek. Taedong only pushes Donghan’s face away and swerves to avoid a large bus they almost crashed into.

 

“Behave, you little shit.” Taedong hisses, and Donghan pouts. Donghyun informs Youngmin that this is a regular occurrence whenever the three of them are out together and Donghan’s in the passenger seat.

 

Fortunately, no more life-threatening car swerving events happen for the next hour until they arrive where they’re camping out indoors until the next day.

 

Youngmin’s half expecting a mass murderer to come out from the house Donghan rented for them all. It’s strange how Donghyun hasn’t died yet in this life. Anyway, there’s still approximately ten hours left before the day ends. There’s still time for things to happen.

 

 

 

 

Donghyun asks Youngmin to talk and walk with him when Taedong and Donghan leave the area to buy food for dinner that night. Donghyun assures him that it’s okay for them to go, because they’re the ones who are technically ‘required’ to go because Taedong has the car, and Donghan is a picky eater.

 

It’s half past five when Donghan and Taedong leave the area in Taedong’s car, and Donghyun is tugging on a beige long cardigan while Youngmin is kneeling in front of the television and silently flipping through the channels. Youngmin glances up when he feels Donghyun looking at him longer than normal and presses a button on the remote control to shut off the television.

 

“Yes?”

 

Donghyun crouches down and pulls his sneakers closer to him, not looking at Youngmin when he replies. “Let’s talk.” Pauses, then quickly adds, “Outside.”

 

Youngmin blinks, watching Donghyun shove his left foot into his shoe and pull on the laces tightly. He sets the remote down on the television set and crawls over to where his sneakers are as well, casually slipping his feet in them without even untying the shoelaces anymore. Youngmin and Donghyun stand up at almost exactly the same time as each other, and Donghyun accidentally bumps his head into Youngmin’s chin.

 

Donghyun hisses in pain, and Youngmin bites on his lip to keep himself from cursing, silently rubbing at his chin. Donghyun manages to croak out, “Are you okay? Fuck, I’m sorry-”

 

“It’s okay,” Youngmin interrupts, and a somehow awkward silence falls in between them for a moment. Youngmin clears his throat, one hand on his chin and the other now hanging uselessly at his side. He repeats awkwardly, “It’s okay. You wanted to talk?”

 

“Yes. Let’s talk outside.” Donghyun starts nodding furiously.

 

Youngmin nods, echoing softly, “Outside.”

 

 

 

 

Youngmin doesn’t know what to expect, honestly. What really is a person supposed to expect when your soulmate isn’t dying yet and asks to talk with you? His mind’s running a few thousand miles over the span of less than a minute, and he’s already run through many  _ many  _ scenarios in his head.

 

Still, though, he doesn’t know what to think.

 

Donghyun is walking with his eyes on his feet, and his arms swinging by his sides. The house Donghan picked out for them to stay in is pretty big, with a balcony and a garden and all, and Donghyun walks half a step ahead of Youngmin, stopping only when he’s walked to the one large tree in the whole garden. Donghyun pivots around on his heels, and his eyes look directly into Youngmin’s.

 

Youngmin suddenly think he can’t breathe, and there’s suddenly something different in the air between them when Donghyun looks into his eyes this time. 

 

Donghyun opens his mouth just to close it repeatedly before abruptly saying, “I remember a lot of things.”

 

Youngmin promptly chokes on the saliva in his mouth, and Donghyun’s eyes widen just slightly. “I’m okay,” Youngmin immediately motions for him to continue speaking as he coughs into his fist. “What do you remember?”

 

“Dying.” Donghyun says shortly, then adds after a short pause, “I remember getting jailed, too.” Another pause, and his gaze is on the ground again.” There’s a lot, really, and I’ve been meaning to mention this earlier, but I never got the opportunity. I don’t think this is something to be discussed over mes-.”

 

Youngmin suddenly cuts in, “Do you remember painting?”

 

Donghyun nods, head tilting slightly to the side as his feet kicks at some pebbles on the ground, “Yes! I think I painted you?”

 

Youngmin nods, “Do you remember going to war?”

 

From the way Donghyun very obviously winces and scratches at the back of his head, Youngmin knows he remembers. “I hate bombs. I really don’t like that life. I don’t like people dying.”

 

Donghyun peeks up at Youngmin, then, and suddenly chuckles awkwardly. “Sorry for making you go through watching me die.” Youngmin doesn’t really hear it because he’s too busy racking his head for his memories of their previous lives to ask Donghyun another question. 

 

A third question. Youngmin doesn’t know what else to ask. He doesn’t know if there are any other too-memorable moments in their past lives because he doesn’t fully know the way Donghyun lived through some. There really were those lives when they didn’t interact with each other much.

 

Youngmin hesitates, deciding on a question about an event from their fourth life, before asking, “Do you remember a guitar named Pudding?” He’s pretty positive that no one would name their musical instruments the same way Sewoon does, anyway.

 

“Yeah. You fell off a window then.” Donghyun then bites his lip, “I think you broke a bone because of that. Sorry.”

 

Youngmin ignores the apology, his mouth suddenly going dry, “You remember Sewoon, then?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Jung Sewoon? The guy who looks like a cartoony fish?”

 

Donghyun lets out a soft laugh, rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeah. That Jung Sewoon”

 

By this point, Youngmin’s not really sure about what to say anymore. He’s been waiting for this exact moment for so long through so many lifetimes, but now that it’s here, he’s not sure what he should say. He thinks his brain just shut down.

 

Donghyun’s gaze has shifted back to his feet, and Youngmin clears his throat. It’s awkward, there’s a strange fluttery feeling in his chest, and he crouches down on the grass underneath the tree. He can feel Donghyun’s eyes follow his actions but he doesn’t think much of it. He thinks he just needs some time to register the fact that no one’s dying anytime soon.

 

A few long moments that feel like minutes pass, and Youngmin’s legs suddenly give way and he lands on his butt on the grass. A loud, exhilarated laugh suddenly escapes his throat as the thought really settles in his chest.

 

Donghyun finally remembers.  _ Fucking finally _ .

 

“Took you long enough.” Youngmin speaks up, head tilting to look up at Donghyun who’s still standing near him. Donghyun laughs.

 

“Sorry you had to go through so much lives.”

 

“You’re so fucking slow,” Youngmin shakes his head, “You know, I was ready to think that some murderer was going to jump out of this tree and kill us all already. I was going to accept my death in this lifetime but then you suddenly came out of the blue with that ‘ _ i remember a lot of things’ _ .” Youngmin’s inhales a sharp breath after that long tumble of word vomit, “But yeah, thanks for finally coming to your senses.”

 

Donghyun just grins at him, and Youngmin’s lips tug into a large grin as well as Donghyun reaches out his hand.

 

Youngmin wraps his hand around Donghyun’s, and Donghyun pulls him up to stand. Donghyun’s seriously like the whole actual sun came down from outer space just to reincarnate itself as human.

 

“Thank you, sunshine.”

 

 

 

 

Youngmin wakes up the next day when the sun had barely risen yet and rolls off the bed, completely forgetting that there is a blonde kid sleeping on a mattress dragged out on the floor from the bed frame. A Kim Donghan groans out loud and rolls over on his mattress when Youngmin immediately pushes himself upwards to stand and gets off Donghan's sleeping space.

 

When he walks into the living room, he finds Donghyun dozing on the floor with a pillow hugged tight to his chest, and Youngmin briefly wonders why didn’t Donghyun even bother to sleep on the couch or on an actual bed. He doesn’t have the energy to try and drag Donghyun somewhere for him to be comfortable, so he walks past, a ghost of a smile on his lips in the natural light of three quarters past four in the morning.

 

Donghyun’s breathing in his sleep, twenty-two years old. Neither of them is dead. In the next life Youngmin spends with Donghyun, he’d hope it would feel this calm as well.

 

It’s a nice change.

  
  



End file.
